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In South Korea, a Protester’s Lone Fight Against Samsung

67 points by adrian_mrd 7y ago

neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/ZkJiy https://archive.md/ZkJiy
maallooc 7y ago
> Mr. Kim said Samsung fired him in 1995 for doing what many others, before and since, have tried to do: organize an independent labor union. No he was not. He was fired because he tried to sexually assult a women co-worker. > The woman said in a notarized statement that Mr. Kim had not assaulted her, and he sued Samsung, demanding his job back. Although he 'claims' that he has a notarized paper that confirms he did not do it he never submitted it to the court and failed to show it to the public. > In 1992, his wife was sexually assaulted, and an unsubstantiated newspaper report speculated that the attacker had a connection to Samsung. The only proof of the incident was the newspaper article, which was an allegation by his wife of attempted sexual assult. No other proof exists.
- rajlego 7y ago
  Do you have proof of your claims?
  - maallooc 7y ago
    I have but they are all Korean.
    - robjan 7y ago
      Can still post them. We have Google translate.
      - maallooc 7y ago
        http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201908031443011 http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201... The paper that says he did not sexually assult the woman is clearly not notarized, as you can see on the photo provided by him. http://www.labortoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=146870 http://www.labortoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1468... He alleges that his attorney did not submit the notarized paper. He says that he lost his appeal because of it. His attorney was Moon Jae-In, who happens to be the current sitting president of South Korea which started his term in 2017. He was fired from Samsung in 1995, but his radical protest started in 2018. Coincidence? About the sexual assult, you can see that it's all her allegations. It's a shame it's copyrighted so I can't share the article but you can buy a page of The Busan Paper, 1992/May/25 23p.
    - rajlego 7y ago
      Better to post them than have unsubstantiated claims.
    - hatsunearu 7y ago
      And I can read them too lol
    - tareqak 7y ago
      Please send them to the New York Times.
      - maallooc 7y ago
        I expected the quality so I'm happy with them. "alleged" "attempted" sexual assult. 33% fact hit rate? That's pretty good.
      - tareqak 7y ago
        I can’t edit this anymore, but I should have said to post them here, and to send them to the New York Times. My mistake.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  I have no dog in this fight but it hardly seems beyond the bounds of possibility that Samsung would just lie and slander a former employee who was an annoyance. What’s the worst that could happen? He somehow finds rock solid proof they did so and gets $10m in damages? The chances of anyone supporting him even if everything he said was true is zero. Pissing off one of Korea’s largest companies isn’t something people with sense do whether they work there or not.
- hatsunearu 7y ago
  Can you post the sources? As it stands you're saying one woman's sexual assault allegations are false and those of another are valid, even though both cases (as presented) are not much different from each other.
totorovirus 7y ago
I have a friend who didn't know how to code in C++ (although he graudated from CS major) but still got into samsung as a developer, got trained how to write code there. It's a typical conglomerate thing in south korea though. The main strategy here is to assetize(they call them selves as samsung family member) their in-house trained developer. He's going to spend rest of his life there as a samsung developer, enjoying social prestige as a 'samsung employee'. I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products. I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society.
- coconut_crab 7y ago
  I work for a Japanese companies, and more than half of the developers here have non-IT backgrounds like marketing, sales, design etc... All of them started with scala from zero and 2~3 years later they start talking about monad, final tagless or writing concurrency helper libraries... Our brain is quite malleable so having non IT background doesn't prevent you to be a good developer.
- logicchains 7y ago
  >I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products. >I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society. Are you sure it's a Korean thing, and not just a hardware-company thing? Even in the west, hardware companies are notorious for having terrible software development practices / UX. Perhaps the sole exception is Apple, and this has allowed them to dominate (compare iOS to the crapware OEMs like Samsung bundle with phones).
  - totorovirus 7y ago
PakG1 7y ago
I'm Korean ethnicity, but Canadian born, my wife is Korean ethnicity and Korean born. We keep talking about whether or not to live in Korea. Korea has seen more rapid economic advancement than any other country in the world. Yeah, I'm saying it beats out China in that regard. I work in China, and while China's progress has been insane, Korea's at a place where China is not yet. So the debate is live in Korea, Canada, or somewhere else (or could just continue working in China, but difficult to call China home, given our backgrounds). The #1 reason why I wouldn't prefer Korea is because Samsung and other chaebols have too much of a grip on the country. They don't play fair. They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them. It's worse than what Microsoft was like in the 90s because at least Microsoft didn't blatantly bribe and corrupt the highest levels of government. They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive. I attended a lecture from a professor at Seoul National University who was an advisor to the government on how to get them to make the stock market more fair and allow companies to grow and achieve success. It was startling to what extent the stock market got manipulated. Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit. Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions? I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment. Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification. I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy. I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt. Apparently, everyone in Hanjin was just completely complacent and waiting for the government to bail them out. When they didn't get bailed out, it was a sign that the new government was willing to make some of the hard decisions necessary to allow for a properly entrepreneurial society to thrive.
- maallooc 7y ago
  Wow, I'll take this bait. >They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive. >Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions? You really think Samsung manipulates the market to gain something? And you think you'll lose something from it? >They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them. >Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit. You know that startups in the United States also don't compete with the sectors where big companies' grip are strong, right? >I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment. There are loads of reinvestment options like real estate, foreign stocks and others if you think ((they)) are controlling the national stock market. >Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification. Then perhaps don't get a stock option? >I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy. And yet, when Samsung tries to close their Gwangju plant everyone starts their uprising. Not in my country but please in my back yard? >I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt. Oh, I'm so politically correct that I am happy with thousands losing their jobs! My views are more important than their lives. I live in the US after living in Seoul and Newfoundland. I will choose Korea over Canada at any times. Canadian medical system is a shitter, slower and bureaucratic version of Korea. I feared for my life because I was not able to get an emergency surgery because they have shortage of doctors. I had to wait a week where in Korea I've had my surgery in 3:00 in the morning after waiting 20 minutes. Old people in Canada fear for their life and move to Mexico or US. It's a total mess. Services at restaurants are shitty and more expensive. Groceries are shitty and expensive. Winter too long that people can't live without Xanax. Drug addicts on the street. Gun control. Housing prices. Trump ruining the economy. Unemployment rise and fall with raw material prices.... Yeah, I'd love to live in Canada to feel these.

67 points by adrian_mrd 7y ago

https://archive.md/ZkJiy https://archive.md/ZkJiy

> Mr. Kim said Samsung fired him in 1995 for doing what many others, before and since, have tried to do: organize an independent labor union. No he was not. He was fired because he tried to sexually assult a women co-worker. > The woman said in a notarized statement that Mr. Kim had not assaulted her, and he sued Samsung, demanding his job back. Although he 'claims' that he has a notarized paper that confirms he did not do it he never submitted it to the court and failed to show it to the public. > In 1992, his wife was sexually assaulted, and an unsubstantiated newspaper report speculated that the attacker had a connection to Samsung. The only proof of the incident was the newspaper article, which was an allegation by his wife of attempted sexual assult. No other proof exists.

rajlego 7y ago
Do you have proof of your claims?
- maallooc 7y ago
  I have but they are all Korean.
  - robjan 7y ago
    Can still post them. We have Google translate.
    - maallooc 7y ago
      http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201908031443011 http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201... The paper that says he did not sexually assult the woman is clearly not notarized, as you can see on the photo provided by him. http://www.labortoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=146870 http://www.labortoday.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1468... He alleges that his attorney did not submit the notarized paper. He says that he lost his appeal because of it. His attorney was Moon Jae-In, who happens to be the current sitting president of South Korea which started his term in 2017. He was fired from Samsung in 1995, but his radical protest started in 2018. Coincidence? About the sexual assult, you can see that it's all her allegations. It's a shame it's copyrighted so I can't share the article but you can buy a page of The Busan Paper, 1992/May/25 23p.
  - rajlego 7y ago
    Better to post them than have unsubstantiated claims.
  - hatsunearu 7y ago
    And I can read them too lol
  - tareqak 7y ago
    Please send them to the New York Times.
    - maallooc 7y ago
      I expected the quality so I'm happy with them. "alleged" "attempted" sexual assult. 33% fact hit rate? That's pretty good.
    - tareqak 7y ago
      I can’t edit this anymore, but I should have said to post them here, and to send them to the New York Times. My mistake.
barry-cotter 7y ago
I have no dog in this fight but it hardly seems beyond the bounds of possibility that Samsung would just lie and slander a former employee who was an annoyance. What’s the worst that could happen? He somehow finds rock solid proof they did so and gets $10m in damages? The chances of anyone supporting him even if everything he said was true is zero. Pissing off one of Korea’s largest companies isn’t something people with sense do whether they work there or not.
hatsunearu 7y ago
Can you post the sources? As it stands you're saying one woman's sexual assault allegations are false and those of another are valid, even though both cases (as presented) are not much different from each other.

totorovirus 7y ago

I have a friend who didn't know how to code in C++ (although he graudated from CS major) but still got into samsung as a developer, got trained how to write code there. It's a typical conglomerate thing in south korea though. The main strategy here is to assetize(they call them selves as samsung family member) their in-house trained developer. He's going to spend rest of his life there as a samsung developer, enjoying social prestige as a 'samsung employee'. I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products. I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society.

coconut_crab 7y ago
I work for a Japanese companies, and more than half of the developers here have non-IT backgrounds like marketing, sales, design etc... All of them started with scala from zero and 2~3 years later they start talking about monad, final tagless or writing concurrency helper libraries... Our brain is quite malleable so having non IT background doesn't prevent you to be a good developer.
logicchains 7y ago
>I recently heard they are now considering to move their code base from svn to git, and write some test code to stabilize the firmware that goes into the ssd products. >I don't think I can explain in short how a mediocre developer who never actually coded something into reality got a degree, and got a job in allegedly the biggest company in south korea... All I can say it is a complex korean thing that requires some cultural understanding of our society. Are you sure it's a Korean thing, and not just a hardware-company thing? Even in the west, hardware companies are notorious for having terrible software development practices / UX. Perhaps the sole exception is Apple, and this has allowed them to dominate (compare iOS to the crapware OEMs like Samsung bundle with phones).
- totorovirus 7y ago

PakG1 7y ago

I'm Korean ethnicity, but Canadian born, my wife is Korean ethnicity and Korean born. We keep talking about whether or not to live in Korea. Korea has seen more rapid economic advancement than any other country in the world. Yeah, I'm saying it beats out China in that regard. I work in China, and while China's progress has been insane, Korea's at a place where China is not yet. So the debate is live in Korea, Canada, or somewhere else (or could just continue working in China, but difficult to call China home, given our backgrounds). The #1 reason why I wouldn't prefer Korea is because Samsung and other chaebols have too much of a grip on the country. They don't play fair. They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them. It's worse than what Microsoft was like in the 90s because at least Microsoft didn't blatantly bribe and corrupt the highest levels of government. They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive. I attended a lecture from a professor at Seoul National University who was an advisor to the government on how to get them to make the stock market more fair and allow companies to grow and achieve success. It was startling to what extent the stock market got manipulated. Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit. Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions? I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment. Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification. I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy. I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt. Apparently, everyone in Hanjin was just completely complacent and waiting for the government to bail them out. When they didn't get bailed out, it was a sign that the new government was willing to make some of the hard decisions necessary to allow for a properly entrepreneurial society to thrive.

maallooc 7y ago
Wow, I'll take this bait. >They manipulate the stock market extremely maliciously to take out competitors before they can become disruptive. >Even if I was just a normal worker, how would my retirement funds be able to grow in that kind of a stock market, even if my employer matched contributions? You really think Samsung manipulates the market to gain something? And you think you'll lose something from it? >They don't give other companies even a chance to disrupt them. >Never mind the idea of starting a company and being able to have a great exit. You know that startups in the United States also don't compete with the sectors where big companies' grip are strong, right? >I'd be dependent on only my bank account savings for retirement, no chance for reinvestment. There are loads of reinvestment options like real estate, foreign stocks and others if you think ((they)) are controlling the national stock market. >Or my retirement funds are all tied into the prospects of my employer's stock? Also scary, zero risk diversification. Then perhaps don't get a stock option? >I think Korea's long-term growth prospects will be severely limited as long as the chaebols have a stranglehold on the economy. And yet, when Samsung tries to close their Gwangju plant everyone starts their uprising. Not in my country but please in my back yard? >I am hopeful by the fact that they let Hanjin go bankrupt. Oh, I'm so politically correct that I am happy with thousands losing their jobs! My views are more important than their lives. I live in the US after living in Seoul and Newfoundland. I will choose Korea over Canada at any times. Canadian medical system is a shitter, slower and bureaucratic version of Korea. I feared for my life because I was not able to get an emergency surgery because they have shortage of doctors. I had to wait a week where in Korea I've had my surgery in 3:00 in the morning after waiting 20 minutes. Old people in Canada fear for their life and move to Mexico or US. It's a total mess. Services at restaurants are shitty and more expensive. Groceries are shitty and expensive. Winter too long that people can't live without Xanax. Drug addicts on the street. Gun control. Housing prices. Trump ruining the economy. Unemployment rise and fall with raw material prices.... Yeah, I'd love to live in Canada to feel these.